USA TODAY: Music Festival MVPs featuring The Revivalists

“Forget a summer vacation. For some performers and bands, summer music festival season is the busiest stretch of their year.

While many artists, from jam bands to EDM DJs, make a living touring year-round, others take a break from playing clubs and theaters for the summer, signing onto North America’s largest summer music festivals. The summer’s busiest big-name acts include Alt-J, with a whopping 28 festivals on their schedule in between dates on their world tour, while Solange is dedicating her entire summer to the festival circuit — her name appearing on 19 more lineups through the end of September.

But it’s not all about the headliners. In the hours before big names like Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar deliver their festival-closing sets, smaller names play those same stages, getting their music in front of many fans who’ve never heard them before.

“Festivals have become a huge conduit through which fans are used to experiencing live music,” said Pitchfork president Chris Kaskie, ahead of the publication’s two festivals in Chicago and Paris. “Because of that, artists have a much wider array of festivals to perform at and audiences to attract. It doesn’t matter how big the act is even, a festival can introduce an artist to a new fanbase in an extremely natural way, and when combined with building a career surrounding their art, it’s a pretty cool proposition.””